History
by Toppermost
Summary: In history, certain people can change the fate of a whole country. Even rarer, some people can direct the course of an entire world. Elizabeth Clennem isn't one of those people. Her life is going to change the history of the entire universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Author Note: Welcome to my VERY FIRST fanfic EVER. Scary. This might be a long note, so bear with me please. First, I've only been watching Dr. Who for… A week? Less? Done with new Who season one, starting season two soon! I've tried to make it as cannon as I can, but if I completely disregard something important, please tell me. Second, I don't own Dr. Who. Third, I'm curious to hear what people have to say about the first paragraph in particular. I let myself go a little over the top, and I hope I got the effect I was going for. Last, a big thank you to YOU, for taking the time to read this! OKAY! Done now. Promise. Maybe. Yes. **

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Humanity has had a perverse fascination with its own insignificance ever since the beginning of its existence. From cavemen squatting around campfires to Renaissance artists peering through their telescopes, mankind constantly laments its own finite nature, bemoans its smallness. Looking out at the limitless sky, the boundless, mysterious universe, they humbly cry, "I am dust, and to dust I shall return," while in the same breath congratulating themselves at their perception and wisdom. The humblest sage, in professing his or her own weakness, becomes a hypocrite. For even the greatest, wisest thinker in all of humanity would quail at the thought of how small they really are, when compared to the vast, swirling expanse of space and time. Perhaps one man or woman in a thousand- no, in a million- has the nerve, luck, or skill to take fate into their own hands and to make their brief existence something that history will remember. Even rarer, popping up maybe a dozen times in the history of a whole galaxy, is that being who, for good or for evil, has the power to change the very course of time. These people ought to be remembered and celebrated, yet so many of them sink into anonymity; their story becomes legend, then myth, then a half remembered dream, a shadow in the collective consciousness of sentient life. The record that I lay before you today is that of one of these extraordinary creatures, one that is remarkable even among its fellows. I begin on the planet Earth, the year 2010, in a small flat in a dingy corner of London…

If Elizabeth Clennem pressed her temple into the glass of the window just so, craned her neck almost horizontally, and peered out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the faint glimmer of stars past the eves of the house and through the flickering of the yellow streetlights below. Of course, such a position was difficult to hold for long, so she quickly resumed staring at the book resting on her lap. After forcing herself to read a few lines, maybe a whole paragraph, she would invariably turn her face back upwards, her breath misting the cool glass. The back and forth, up and down movement went on for almost a half an hour, before she irritably slammed the book shut. As much as she tried to concentrate, and as urgent as it was that she get through the first few chapter before the lecture tomorrow, the outside of the window, rather than the inside of the book, continued to draw her eye.

"Why am I so restless tonight…?" She muttered to herself, fingers drumming on the cover of the book. With a deep sigh, she twisted to look outside again_. I've sat here doing the same thing almost every night for the past two weeks, but it's never bothered me before. At least, not this much._ Again, the twist, this time accompanied by a faster tempo drumming. _I mean really_, she asked herself, _what did you expect when you were accepted for exchange in England? Become the center of the social scene in two days? Talk like a native in five? Be adopted as a long lost granddaughter by a duchess in a week, and be engaged to a prince in two? _Elizabeth couldn't help but roll her eyes at her own overactive imagination, while at the same time struggling to suppress the disappointment rising in her. Whatever it was the she expected, this wasn't it. Shuffling to and from her classes and her rooms, holing herself up at night to write essays and study her notes, watching old movies on TV when she ran out of homework. One night she had tried to go into a pub, a proper English one, but had felt so out of place and alone that she had walked out as soon had she had gone in.

Of course, there were plenty of people in her classes that she could talk to, even another American, but her first week in London was so intoxicating that she virtually ignored everyone else around her, franticly sightseeing and souvenir shopping. Now here she was, the stereotypical literary major, holed up with her books with nowhere to go. Once more, she twisted to stare at the stars, but this time she caught herself halfway. A subtle darkening on the other side of the glass had transformed it into a mirror, and her own reflection made her pause and look. Brown hair pulled into a severe braid, constantly flushed cheeks, a long nose, balanced by a soft chin. She bit her lips and peered closer at her own eyes. Blue, Crayola blue, discernable even in the dim light. Even if she had no social life, she at least had stunning blue eyes. Turning around to face the rest of the room, she slid off the window seat and tossed the book onto the table. If she couldn't talk in an accent and she couldn't honestly bring herself to refer to a sweater as a jumper, she could at least enjoy that most English of luxuries: tea.

Her bright red kettle, a going away present form her parents, heated on the stove. Elizabeth sat at her small table, a blank page of her notebook resting in front of her. However, despite her best efforts, no words came to mind. Not on her present situation, not on her journey to London, not even on her bright red kettle. Nothing. London, the home of Shakespeare, Dickens, and dozens of other notables, refused to inspire her. Suddenly, the otherwise cozy flat seemed constrictive. The newly whistling kettle seemed shrill and aggravating. Even her course reading stacked up on the counter, many of them personal favorites, seemed to taunt her. The door drew her eye in the same hypnotic way that the stars had.

Standing abruptly, Elizabeth tucked her notebook under her arm, turned off the stove, and, pausing only to stick a key in her jacket pocket, burst out of her apartment and hurried to the stairs.

_ A walk will make me feel better, _she thought. _Once, quick around the block. Maybe something I'll see will inspire me, maybe the air will clear my head. Maybe I'll run into a prince, incognito, and it will be love at first sight._ Again, she grinned to herself. _At least I'll be able to see some stars. _Out of her building door, around the corner, past the proper English pub and across a deserted street she went, still not quite paying attention to where she was going. Turns and street crossing blurred together; she stared at her feet as she walked, almost in a trance. _Remarkable things, feet, _she mused. _Flapping up and down, moving humans around for centuries. Quite efficient, really. _Suddenly, almost without her realizing it, her remarkable feet stopped. Immediately, she looked up, searching out stars amid the light pollution. One or two glimmered, but the view was not much better than the one from her flat. Suddenly, Elizabeth Clennem realized that she had no idea where she was, a dangerous thing in a foreign city. She turned around frantically, looking for a street sign, or maybe a helpful map on the ground to direct her. Instead, she found herself face to face with something big and blue. Stepping back hastily, she looked it up and down. It looked kind of like a telephone booth, but not. The white writing around the top said _Police Box._


	2. Chapter 2

_Police box. Sounds very British,_ she thought. _Well, it sounds as promising as anything. Maybe it'll have a map. _Suddenly, she patted her pockets and groaned._ Or a phone. Since I apparently left my cell at home._ Looping her fingers around the small handles, Elizabeth tugged on the doors, but they didn't budge. The frame rattled, and she could hear something shifting inside, but the doors remained stubbornly locked. Again, she tugged, but with the same result. _Probably closed up for the night, _she thought_._

Then she leaned in closer. There was something odd about the doors, something obvious that she was missing. Narrowing her eyes, Elizabeth bent down to look at the bottom of the frame, and then straightened up rapidly.

"Well, I sure am an idiot." She muttered to herself as she _pushed_, not pulled. The doors opened easily before her and she stepped into the darkness.

Thump. _Bang._ "Ouch!" Something on the back wall of the box fell and smacked her on the head, leaving her ears ringing with a low, screeching, throbbing sound, and her eyes watering. Barely able to make out the offending box on the floor, and the shelf that it had fallen off, she stumbled backwards, muttering curses. Her heals caught on the edge of the police box and sent her tumbling backwards.

For a moment, she hung suspended in that strange midway point between falling and flying, before she crashed through yet another set of doors, hanging where there had certainly not been any before.

All of the air knocked out of her chest, Elizabeth merely lay there. Too stunned to see, too stunned to think, almost too stunned to breathe, she merely felt. She was laying on something cold and hard, certainly not concrete. The air was warm, much warmer than before, and completely still. Slowly, her vision cleared and her breathing steadied. In front of her was a pair of doors, identical to the pair she had just fallen out of. Through them, the blue police box where she had hit her head was visible. What had previously been empty concrete, a deserted street, was now… Something else. And she was inside of it.

"What the hell…?" Elizabeth managed to gasp out with her first full breath. Slowly sitting up, rubbing her forehead, she glanced around her. In three seconds flat, she was up on her feet, outside the doors, staring at the outside, and then the inside, with wide eyes.

"What the hell!" This time with more emotion. Hands shaking, she slammed the doors shut, then opened them again. Shut, opened, shut, opened. The result was the same. Backing up until she could feel the closed doors of the other police box behind her, Elizabeth stared into the... Whatever. On the outside, it was identical to her police box to the tiniest detail. On the inside, however…

For a few deep breaths, Elizabeth merely stared at it. Let the impossibility of it register. Noted that what she was seeing was certainly _not_ real, and even more, _not_ physically possible. Then she walked forward. The concrete beneath her feet seemed extra hard, the wind brushing her cheek extra sharp, as if trying to make up for the flat unreality of the moment. She took a slow lap around the box, to ascertain that she really wasn't crazy, that a big blue thing had really appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a London sidewalk. Then she was standing in front of the doors again, staring inside, the faint light emanating from the inside tinting her pale face green.

Gently, she stretched out a hand and touched the door. Rough, well-worn wood, completely normal… Except for the fact that it was warm on her palm, and seemed to vibrate slightly. Whatever this thing was, it was, for the lack of a better phrase, powered up.

Different emotions were replacing her fear and incredulousness; excitement and curiosity stared to bubble pleasantly in her stomach. Elizabeth found herself stepping into the cavernous space, past the border of logic.

Wild theories raced through her head. _Government experiment. Aliens. Magic. Crazy, high-budget reality TV show. It's like something out of a book!_ Her footsteps sped up, clanging on the metal floor. _I could be the very first human to see something like this! I could be making history! So much for discovering England, I'm discovering new laws of reality!_ Her Crayola-blue eyes glowed with excitement.

At the top of the ramp, Elizabeth stopped and looked hungrily around. She took in the magnificent, sweeping struts jutting out from the curving walls, the arching ceiling, and, most impressive, the round control panel in the center, with the gleaming glass structure reaching up into the ceiling. Curiously, she touched the nearest pillar thing. It was rough, like stone, but not quite stone.

Like the doors, it was more than it seemed. There was energy there, a hum. Her first thought was of an idling engine, waiting to be revved. However, as she continued to gaze around the room, she reconsidered. The hum wasn't mechanic. It was steadier, subtler. In fact, if it weren't for the obvious wires and lights in the panels in front of her, Elisabeth would have said that it felt almost _alive_.

_Whoa whoa whoa…_ She thought to herself, stepping back. _Slow down. It's enough to find a reality bending building that appeared out of nowhere, that's incredible enough. Don't go thinking that it's alive too!_ Shaking her head at herself, she stepped up to the control panel, her eyes widening at all of the buttons, knobs, levers, touch panels, and gauges. A sudden, child-like urge to try them all possessed her. Grinning widely, stretched her hand out to pull the biggest, most important looking lever she could see.

However, she never got the chance, because the second her fingers touched the handle, the steady, subtle glow in the heart of the machine flared up violently, half blinding her. The next second, from the opposite side of the console, came the low but unmistakable sound of a human groan.

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**NOTE: Yay, chapter two! Sorry for the delay, I don't think that I will ever be a very quick uploader. At least, until I get more reviews :-)**

**Anyway, I took the creative liberty to put a random Police Box on the street. I know that they are pretty much nonexistent on London streets anymore, but I really wanted to write a scene like that, so humor me. **


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